Illinois man gets 5 years for trying to burn down planned abortion clinic

URBANA, Ill. (AP) — A 73-year-old Illinois man was sentenced Monday to five years in prison for driving a car into a planned abortion clinic and trying to set the building on fire last year.

Philip J. Buyno of Prophetstown also was ordered to serve three years of supervised release and to pay $327,547 in restitution, prosecutors said in a news release. U.S. District Judge Colin S. Bruce handed down the sentence.

Buyno pleaded guilty in September to a federal charge of attempting to use fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce.

Buyno admitted that on May 20 he used his car to breach the front entrance to a commercial building in Danville. He brought several containers filled with gasoline to burn the structure down before it could be used as a reproductive health clinic, prosecutors have said.

Danville police officers found Buyno stuck inside the car, which he had backed into the entrance of the building, prosecutors said.

During a search of the car, FBI agents found bottles containing gasoline, a hatchet, road flares, old tires and a pack of matches. Buyno had fortified the trunk of the car with wooden beams, prosecutors said.